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A lot or a little?

The parents' guide to what's in this game.

Positive Messages

Story intends to satirize modern sex and dating culture -- including dating apps and online pornography -- but is often tone-deaf in its attempt, resulting in scenes that feel creepy, misogynistic, even racist. It does show progressive attitude to homosexuality.

Positive Role Models & Representations

Larry isn't someone to emulate. While he often tries to help people, he's also cluelessly rude, hopelessly obsessed with sex; he objectifies women, makes bad decision after bad decision. Some non-player characters are equally obnoxious, displaying egotism, shamelessness, a fondness for making fun of others.

Ease of Play

The interface is simple and easy to understand, but puzzles involve an extraordinary amount of trial and error as players experiment with combining dozens of objects with each other in an effort to see if they'll make something useful.

Violence

Larry can be killed by a few different things, including fire and electricity. His death is accompanied by a still image that might show him burned to ashes or getting electrocuted. A decaying skeleton is discovered inside a wall, and a dead body is found in a ball pit. A woman is killed by flying debris. The cartoonish imagery limits the impact of these scenes.

Sex

Story revolves around sexual themes, includes frank dialogue focused on genitals, sex toys, sexual positions. Players see posters, graffiti, objects depicting penises, breasts, buttocks, vaginas, sexual acts. Scenes in which sex is suggested to take place include sounds in the dark and flashes of partners about to engage, stopping just shy of showing act itself.

Language

Expect occasional strong language, including "s--t" and "f--k."

Consumerism

Several parody brands are meant to make players think of real-world services and products, including Facebook, Apple, and Tinder, but without intent to promote them.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink alcohol to excess and use tobacco and vaping products. Drug paraphernalia such as used syringes and pills litters certain environments.

What parents need to know

Parents need to know that Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry is a downloadable point-and-click adventure for Windows PCs. The story is about an obnoxious man named Larry who's on a perpetual quest to have sex with any woman who will have him. Characters have frank discussions about genitalia, sex toys, and sexual positions, and Larry visits locations including a sex shop and strip club with posters and objects that graphically represent penises, vaginas, breasts, and buttocks. Since the story sees him transported from the 1980s to the present day, he must also familiarize himself with modern sex culture and customs, including online dating, livestreaming pornography, and parodies of apps and services like Tinder and Facebook. When it comes to the act of sex, it's typically either interrupted, set in a dark area with sounds meant to convey sexual activities, or shown via images captured just before it happens. While the game's meant to be satirical, parts will likely come off as tone-deaf to modern audiences. Larry rudely propositions and objectifies women, and in some cases these women seem happy to let him do so. A scene involving a Native American who talks about casinos, smoking, and aboriginal naming customs comes off as racist. Parents should also be aware that parts of the game involve characters drinking to excess and getting sick, and that strong language occasionally appears in both dialogue and in graffiti in the environment.

What's it about?

LEISURE SUIT LARRY: WET DREAMS DON'T DRY transports the adult-oriented cult franchise's sex-obsessed protagonist, Larry Laffer, from the late 1980s to the present day, where he continues his embarrassingly rude and clueless quest to have sex with just about every woman he meets. While certain things haven't changed over the last 30 years -- like Lefty's bar, which is still a disgusting dive -- lots of other things have, particularly in the realm of technology. Larry has to learn to use a cell phone so that he can begin navigating the online dating world, including an app called Timber. He creates a profile within the app and begins trying to schedule hook-ups with a variety of potential romantic partners. The story is broken into several acts, each one consisting of dozens of contextual puzzles that involve clicking on things within the environment that look interesting to either interact with them or collect them, then figuring out what to do with them. Some objects can be combined, some need to be given to people, and some need to be applied to situations in the world. For example, at one point Larry needs to combine a couple of objects to create a makeshift sticky fishing rod to latch onto something lost down a sewer grate. The bulk of the game is composed of Larry helping other characters in hopes that they'll eventually have sex with him. Parents should be aware that many of the locations Larry visits, most of the objects he collects, and much of the dialogue in which he engages is explicitly sexual.

Is it any good?

While there's nothing wrong with an adult-oriented game going for some racy laughs, you'd hope that such a game would find a way to make its jokes a proper fit for the modern era. Sadly, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry is content to more or less disregard the #MeToo movement, not only allowing Larry to get away with making inappropriate comments to and hit on just about every woman he meets, but showing many of these women as being accepting of and even receptive to his conduct. It also allows for some downright creepy behavior with no reprisal, as in the case of a character who requests and receives a pair of dirty used panties scavenged from bathroom trash. Some parts of the game are bound to provoke a chuckle due simply to their outlandish nature -- such as a puzzle that involves making a trap for a rat out of a condom and a couple of unmentionable items -- but most scenarios and jokes are content to aim significantly lower.

On the subject of puzzles, many descend into the realm of frustratingly nonsensical, requiring seemingly endless trial and error. The only clues players receive as to how an item might be used or combined are through their one-line descriptions, and many crafting combinations are anything but obvious. When you get stuck, your only recourse is to select an item and repetitively click on other items to see if they can be combined or try to use it somewhere in an environment. And when you do eventually figure out how or where to use it, you'll likely grow even more angry because you'll realize that there probably wasn't any way you could have known how or when to use it other than trial and error. Perhaps one day we'll see a Leisure Suit Larry game that delivers shocking and lewd humor while shrewdly acknowledging the unacceptability of the titular character's behavior -- one that also delivers a bevy of clever and fair point-and-click puzzles. Alas, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry isn't it.

Talk to your kids about ...

Families can talk about sex, gender, and body image. How does the portrayal of both women and men in Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry make you feel? Did you learn anything about how gender is depicted in media?

Satire and parody can be effective devices for humor, but how do you know when a joke has crossed the line from providing funny commentary to cruelly poking fun of something?

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